Thursday, January 28, 2016

THE PAPER | Religion, Democracy and Terrorism

One of the most
important policy-relevant questions terrorism researchers have attempted to
address is the relationship between democracy and terrorism. Some extol the
virtues of democracy in combating or discouraging terrorism. Others claim that
the vulnerabilities inherent in democracy make terrorist activity easier to
carry out.

This essay suggests that both schools of thought may be correct:
democracies suffer disproportionately from certain manifestations of terrorism
but not others. Specifically, I show that religious terrorists - those who
prescribe for themselves religious aims and identities-are more likely to
target authoritarian states, while non-religious terrorists tend to attack
liberal democracies. The reason for this is two-fold:

(i) religious terrorists
are not as deterred by systemic repression as their secular counterparts and

(ii) authoritarian countries breed religious extremism by radicalizing
religious actors, weakening moderates and increasing support for extremism by making
religion a point of cohesion against the state.

States that provide religious
security for their citizens, on the other hand - the common understanding that
religious identity (including beliefs and practices) of groups and individuals
in society is inviolable–undercut the narrative propounded by religious
militants that their faith is under attack, thus dampening the impetus towards
violence. Religiously secure countries also allow for the development of
cross-cutting cleavages other than those rooted in religion. For this reason,
secular terrorism is more likely to occur in liberal countries than in
repressive ones.

Keywords:
Terrorism; religion; democracy

The
Democracy-Terrorism Debate

Scholars of
terrorism have been studying the connections between democracy and terrorism
for decades. Yet the literature on democracy and terrorism has not reached a
conclusive verdict. On one side are those who argue that democracy mitigates
terrorism. These studies reveal an inverse relationship between political
freedom and the likelihood of terrorism. The logic here is straightforward: the
availability of political representation found in democracies and not present
in repressive states affords groups and individuals the ability to select their
leaders, pursue their political ambitions, and air their grievances through
political channels rather than resorting to terrorism. In this same vein, some
scholars have found that the democratic commitment to civil liberties also
lessens the risk of terrorism and other forms of political violence.[1] Thus
democracies are believed to be “accessible systems” that naturally undercut the
motivations for terrorist activity by providing legitimate, non-violent avenues
for political dissent.[2] Contrariwise, authoritarian regimes that choke
nonviolent avenues of dissent, ban participation in political decision-making
and curb freedom of expression incentivize terrorist activity in that they
leave violence as the only way by which aggrieved persons can try to change the
system.[3] Such systems also serve to delegitimize the state, alienate
citizens, and increase popular grievances, thus providing terrorists with a
steady supply of support from among ordinary citizens.[4] Furthermore, when
these kinds of regimes harshly crack down on more peaceful forms of dissent
such as protests, they invite retaliatory violence against governmental
brutality.[5]

Democracies also
make superior counter-terrorists, according to this school of thought. Max
Abrahms, James I. Walsh and James A. Piazza, for example, have all argued that
a commitment to civil liberties restrains democracies from overreacting to
terrorism–the precise thing that terrorists want them to do. For countries to
violate their liberal values in combating terror risks losing the support of
the very constituencies–moderates, the international community, and their own
publics–required for success. On the other hand, by goading states into using
excessive force, terrorists can actually engender support from those would
otherwise be sympathetic towards the state.[6]

On the debate’s
other side are those who claim that instead of diffusing terrorism, democracy
actually enables it.[7] This school of thought holds that the qualities inherent
in democracies serve to facilitate attacks by militants. For instance, the
democratic commitment to the rule of law, limits on the executive, and respect
for individual rights (especially freedoms of movement, speech, and
association) enable terrorist activity by providing militants with an open
space to attract sympathizers, recruit members and plot attacks.[8] Furthermore
the presence of a free media makes it easier for terrorists to spew propaganda,
communicate which each other and claim responsibility for terrorist strikes,
thus making violence easier for terrorists in democracies.[9]

Democracies are
also believed to be inferior in terms of responding to terrorism by making the
detention and prosecution of suspected terrorists more cumbersome due to
restrictions on policing, a commitment to due process, and the presence of an
independent judiciary.[10] By contrast, authoritarian states are less
susceptible to terrorism precisely because they have greater capacities to
monitor society, more restraints on movement, more media restrictions, and
fewer constraints on surveillance and interrogation practices, thus raising the
costs of participating in terrorist activity.[11] In short, according to this
school, non-democracies experience less terrorism than democracies because they
increase the costs of engaging in violence by making terrorism difficult and
dangerous, whereas the openness of society in democratic states decreases those
costs.[12]

Looking at both
terrorism and communal conflict more generally, a final set of studies finds an
inverted U-shaped relationship between democracy and domestic violence.
According to this logic, both highly repressive states and highly democratic
ones experience low levels of civil conflict. In the former case, the costs of
engaging in violence are prohibitive; in the latter, other means exist whereby
groups in society can affect political change. So-called “anocracies”—countries
transitioning either toward democracy or authoritarianism—experience the worst
of both worlds. They do not yet have the institutions and political channels
for citizens to peacefully express their dissatisfaction with the political
status quo; at the same time, they do not have or choose not to use the tools
of repression to undercut terrorist group formation and violence a priori.
Anocratic countries in the transition period between democracy and autocracy,
countries exhibiting enduring semi-democracy and new democracies tend to suffer
higher levels of civil conflict including terrorism.[13]

Religion and
Variations in Terrorist Targeting

The connection,
then, between democracy and terrorism is inconclusive. Why is the literature so
mixed? A large reason is that the historical record itself points in both
directions. Some long-standing democracies like those in Scandinavia and Canada
have been relatively free of terrorism; others like India, Greece and Israel
have suffered hundreds of attacks. In examining the relationship between
democracy and terrorism, scholars have attempted to disaggregate different
dimensions of democratic governance and their effect on terrorism, thus
accounting for the variation. Such studies have looked at the importance of
multi-party competition, [14] rule of law, [15] democratic participation, [16]
different representation systems, [17] and regime strength.[18] Thus, both
regime type and specific regime characteristics need to be taken into account
when considering the structural determinants of terrorism.

While many
studies on democracy and terrorism examine different components of democracy,
most do not attempt to disaggregate terrorism with respect to ideology,
motivations, or tactics in the same way. The majority of these studies tend to
lump terrorist groups together without taking into account the guiding ideologies
of different terrorist organizations. “Terrorism,” however, runs the risk of
being an overly-aggregate dependent variable. Perhaps democracies/autocracies
give rise to some manifestations of terrorism but not to others. Thus a
disaggregated approach is more promising for understanding the structural
conditions that encourage particular forms of terrorist violence, thus
explaining some of the observed variation in the studies discussed above. It
might, therefore, be more useful to classify terrorist incidents based on who
the perpetrators are and their long-term objectives.

One possible way
of distinguishing terrorist groups is on the basis of religion. Religious
terrorists–those who prescribe for themselves religious identities and aims–are
fundamentally different from their secular counterparts in important ways.[19]
Religious terrorists look to their faith as a source of inspiration,
legitimation and worldview, resulting in a totally different incentive
structure than exists for their secular counterparts.[20] Accordingly,
religious terrorist groups are also more lethal and long-lived than
non-religious organizations.[21] Such groups have been implicated in a rising
number of suicide missions in recent years, while suicide attacks by secular
groups have declined.[22] To be sure, religious terrorist organizations can
pursue vastly different goals, ranging from apocalyptic notions to the
establishment of a religious state in the here and now. Yet because religious
militants often understand their endeavors as part of a larger-than-life
spiritual struggle, the constraints that normally limit secular terrorist
groups seem to have little bearing on groups and individuals who commit
violence in God’s name.

It stands to
reason, then, that the structural conditions that enable religious terrorists
might not have the same effect on non-religious terrorists and vice versa.
Religious terrorist groups, for example, may be willing to carry out attacks in
the same conditions of pervasive authoritarianism that might otherwise
discourage non-religious terrorists who are not motivated by transcendent
concerns. Indeed, analyzing terrorist attacks by group ideology and regime type
reveals a striking dissimilarity between religious and non-religious terrorist
groups. Non-democracies are far more likely to birth religious terrorists,
while democracies are more likely to experience attacks by groups motivated by
non-religious concerns.

The charts below
examine the average annual number of both religious and non-religious domestic
terrorist attacks according to countries’ level of freedom. The freedom scores
are taken from Freedom House, a widely used index to assess the democratic
status of countries worldwide.[23] Coding of religious and non-religious
terrorist incidents was done by analyzing terrorist attacks that were included
in the University of Maryland’s Global Terrorism Database from 1991-2012. Only
attacks by groups that are driven by an explicit and professed religious
ideology rooted in supernatural assumptions are considered “religious”
attacks.[24] Focusing on beliefs and practices rooted in supernatural
assumptions has the benefit of allowing for the differentiation of religious
from secular ideologies and avoiding debates as to whether ideologies like
Marxism or nationalism constitute religion. Another benefit is that it allows
for the separation of groups driven by a professed religious ideology from
groups that may coalesce around a common religious identity but do not have
overtly religious goals or motivations as in the cases of the Tamil Tigers, the
Irish Republican Army, and the Greek Orthodox EOKA.[25]

Figure 1.
Religious Terrorist Attacks by Democracy Level, 1991-2012

The charts
reveal a marked difference in the countries most susceptible to religious or
non-religious terrorist attacks. The first chart shows that 74 percent of
religious attacks transpired in countries that were “not free” by Freedom
House’s standards. 23 percent of attacks occurred in “partly free” countries.

Only 3 percent
of attacks took place in liberal democracies. By contrast, only 10 percent of
non-religious attacks took place in authoritarian, unfree countries. Two-thirds
of these attacks occurred in partly-free countries. Yet nearly a quarter of
attacks, 23 percent, transpired in liberal democracies. Simply put, religious
terrorists appear not to be deterred by the same structural conditions that
apparently deter their secular counterparts. Conversely, non-religious
terrorists are far more likely to attack partly-free or free countries; 90
percent of these attacks occurred in moderately free or fully free countries.

These
percentages show important differences in the logics of both kinds of
terrorism. Even if repression generally raises the costs for engaging in
terrorism, this rule does not seem to apply to terrorists motivated by
religion. Put differently, the same structural context that makes terrorism a
suboptimal tactic for political dissidents trying to secure concessions from
their adversaries actually enables terrorism by those motivated by an ideology
that downplays the strategic calculus of purely political rebel groups.
Religious terrorists see value in engaging in violence in authoritarian
settings, despite the risks of doing so. This does not mean that religious
terrorists are irrational, but rather that they operate according to a
different type of cost-benefit analysis than non-religious terrorists.

Religious
Security and Terrorism

How can we
account for these differences in the targeting preferences of religious and
non-religious groups? One possibility is that religious terrorist attacks are
concentrated in countries that have high levels of religiosity to begin with.
While this might be true in certain cases, this rationale does not account for
the fact that in a fair number of authoritarian countries plagued by religious
terrorism, levels of religiosity are actually quite low as in China and Burma.
Conversely, some highly religious countries like Ghana and Romania witness very
few terrorist incidents. Another possibility is that religious terrorism occurs
with higher frequency in authoritarian states because the majority of Islamic
countries are authoritarian and most religious terrorist groups claim an
Islamic mantle. This rationale falls short for three reasons. First, certain
Islamic countries like Bangladesh and Pakistan are equally or more likely to
experience non-religious forms of terrorism as they are to suffer from Islamist
terrorism. Second, slightly more than one-third of Islamic countries actually
experienced no terrorism during the timeframe being analyzed, and more than
two-thirds witnessed fewer than 10 attacks. The evidence indicates that Islamic
countries are not more likely to suffer from religious terrorism when compared
to non-Muslim countries. Third, about the same number of Islamic countries are
“free” as those that are “not free.” Like the rest of the world, most fall in
the “partially free” category.

Insights derived
from the sociological theory of post-materialism first developed in the 1970s
can be useful in developing a theory for understanding why religious terrorism
tends to occur in authoritarian settings, while non-religious terrorism occurs
in largely democratic countries. University of Michigan Political Scientist
Ronald Inglehart has long argued that rising levels of wealth free people from
a fixation on materialistic values like economic or physical security, and
allow them to emphasize a different set of values—“post-material” ones—that
stress autonomy and self-expression.[26] Thus rising prosperity creates a
perceived widespread sense of existential security, which gradually liberates
those living in rich countries from occupation with basic materialistic needs,
allowing them to pursue other goals such as belonging, esteem and intellectual
satisfaction.[27] In contrast, in countries marked by abject poverty and the
uncertainty of survival, individuals vulnerable to physical, societal and
personal risks tend to be preoccupied with materialistic values (i.e., basic
healthcare, access to clean water, etc.) because survival cannot be taken for
granted as it can in prosperous countries.

The theory of
post-materialism can be adapted to help understand variations in religious and
secular terrorism across time and space. Just as Inglehart argued that survival
values predominate when material sustenance and physical security are scarce,
the tendency for religion to turn violent exists when religious security is in
short supply. While the most obvious way in which religious security can become
compromised involves government restrictions on religious practice in the forms
of unfavorable laws, violent state suppression, or cooptation of religious institutions,
religious insecurity can result from several other factors including domestic
or international conflict, religiously-based social hostilities and
persecution, bellicose religious doctrines, and so forth. For this reason,
religious security is a much more expansive concept than conventional notions
about religious freedom. When religion becomes embattled for any of these
reasons, it serves to radicalize political theologies and give more credence to
the narrative espoused by religious extremists that their faith is under
attack, either by the state or society at large. Because legitimate
institutional vehicles are not available to voice grievances, certain religious
groups feel compelled to take matters into their own hands.

The key problem
with respect to religiously insecure states is that they isolate and radicalize
religious identity in society and increase the possibility that religious
groups and individuals feel aggrieved enough to take up arms against a state or
group that is perceived to be attacking that religious identity. For example,
when governmental institutions act in a discriminatory manner and block
channels for political and cultural engagement, they create conditions ripe for
the development of bellicose political theologies where people of faith
perceive their religious beliefs are being attacked and are in need of defense.
[28] This dynamic can be seen in places like Algeria, Egypt, and China.
Religious security can also become compromised at the society level.
Inter-group hostilities rooted in religion often result in tit-for-tat
retaliations by targeted groups, leading to violent conflict spirals. [29] In
the western Rakhine state of Burma, communal violence, including widespread
rioting and clashes, between Rohingya Muslims and Buddhists has resulted in
thousands of deaths and hundreds of thousands of people being internally
displaced. Finally, as seen most vividly in Iraq and Syria, civil wars and the
collapse of the state often creates a power vacuum which is exploited by extremist
groups which threaten the religious security of all who do not unswervingly
abide by their radical ideology. These are just three examples of the myriad
ways in which religious insecurity and violence are connected, and these
conditions are far less likely to be present in liberal democracies.

Unlike in
Inglehart’s argument, religious security does not come about through the
generation of wealth, but rather by through respect for the rights of religious
groups and individuals—a quality inherent in liberal democracies. When people
of faith are free to believe whatever they want and practice their religion
however they see fit, a transformation of individual values ensues. As
countries transition toward greater religious tolerance and inclusivity, the
subsequent strengthening of religious security reduces the necessity of
violence on the part of religious adherents. No longer do individuals have to
fight to earn basic religious rights; instead these rights are guaranteed and
indeed taken for granted in highly secure countries. The full recognition of
religious rights allows individuals to gradually shift their attention to
non-religious goals.

In states that
are religiously secure, religion does not cease to be an important value–just
as Inglehart’s concept of existential security never stops being
fundamental–but rather, concerns over religion are not overwhelmingly
predominant, often leading to attention being given to other or new issues and
the formation of cross-cutting cleavages in which religious and other forms of
identity are given more equal weight. Prolonged periods of religious security
encourage the spread of these non-religious concerns, while the declination of
religious security has the opposite effect. People raised in times of religious
security will turn their attention to “post-religious” concerns. These concerns
permit an entirely different set of grievances to emerge that has little to do
with religion–secular nationalism, environmentalism, animal rights activism,
racial supremacism, etc.–for which terrorists may take up the gun.

Terrorism of
this variety often occurs when groups believe they are too small or
marginalized to work through the system or the state refuses to negotiate on
issues of importance. Religious terrorism may well occur in religiously secure
countries, but it tends to be intermittent and carried out by “lone wolf”
militants. This logic might help us understand how a country like the United
States can remain highly religious and multicultural, yet at the same time face
few problems when it comes to religious violence.[30] This also means, though,
that secular violence becomes more common in religiously secure states. In
short, in religiously-secure countries, the religious and political rights of
religious groups and individuals are basic, allowing for other kinds of
cleavages to rise to importance. Because people of faith in these states can
practice their faith as they see fit and work through democratic channels in
order to achieve their political goals, the likelihood for religious violence
is diminished because the right to religion is essentially unquestioned.

As the
literature shows, religious terrorism has been on the rise over the past 30
years and especially after the attacks of September 11, 2001.[31] This can be
attributed to two key factors. The first involves the global resurgence of
religion in response to the perceived destruction of religious values by
corrupt and self-serving secular political orders.[32] The religious resurgence
has been exacerbated by forces like modernization and globalization. Yet this
increase in religion’s prominence comes at the precise time that religion has
come under unprecedented assault from governmental religious restrictions,
communal hostilities involving religion, and religiously-based civil wars–the
withering of religious security.[33] The confluence of these trends helps to
both explain the rise of religiously-motivated terrorism and predict its
continuation and intensification well into the future.

Conclusion

This article has
made the case that religious terrorism tends to occur in authoritarian settings
because faith-based terrorists are not as likely to be deterred by repression
and such settings make religion a point of cohesion and contention. By
contrast, in religiously secure places, people are less likely to take the
claims of militants that their faith is under attack seriously and will be less
willing to support or join religious terrorist organizations. People in these
countries may, however, subscribe to a different militant narrative–a secular
one–that supports the use of violence.

This study
reinforces the notion that there is heterogeneity in terrorism, arguing that
different structural contexts have the potential to breed different kinds of
terrorist groups. The disaggregated approach used here cautions against making
blanket judgments about the causes of “terrorism” in general, as much of the
existing literature does. Contemporary terrorism has diverse roots, and this
reality becomes even clearer when comparing the contexts that give rise to
religious and non-religious forms of terrorism. This further means that making
universal policy recommendations is difficult as the findings suggest that
there is no single “silver bullet” for defeating terrorism. Approaches designed
to combat secular terrorism need not necessarily apply to religious terrorism
and vice versa.

Instead of
adopting blanket approaches to terrorism, states would be best advised to take
into account the specific nature of the threats they face. For example, this
article suggests that if states struggling with religious terrorism take steps
towards introducing a modicum of religious security, then this will have a
mitigating effect on that particular form of terrorism, even though the threat
of religious terrorism can never be completely eradicated. But the case has
also been made that liberal democracies are far more likely to experience
nonreligious forms of terrorism. Fortunately, though, it has been shown that
dealing with non-religious terrorism is a more manageable task and can be
handled through methods like policing and intelligence. These counterterrorism
tactics, which tend to be ineffective against religious terrorism, often
succeed when used against non-religious terrorist groups.

While this
article has revealed marked divergences in terrorist targeting against certain
kinds of regimes based on group ideology and while it offered a possible
explanation for this finding, it has not attempted to robustly test this
relationship or rule out alternative explanations. Future research, therefore,
can expand upon the arguments put forward in this article in two ways. First,
statistical analysis should be used to examine the robustness of the
relationship between religious insecurity and violence, while accounting for
other variables that may have an effect on variations on terrorist targeting.
Second, case studies at both the country and group level would provide
increased leverage in determining how and why violence arises.

About the
Author:

Dr. Nilay Saiyais Assistant Professor of Political Science and
Director of International Studies at the State University of New York,
Brockport. His research interests include the study of religion and global
politics, American foreign policy, and terrorism. He earned his Ph.D. from the
University of Notre Dame in 2013.

Notes

[1] Ted Robert
Gurr and Will H. Moore, “Ethnopolitical Rebellion: A Cross-Sectional Analysis
of the 1980s with Risk Assessments for the 1990s.” American Journal of
Political Science, (1997), pp. 1079-1103; Patrick Regan and Daniel Norton,
“Greed, Grievance, and Mobilization in Civil Wars,” Journal of Conflict
Resolution, no. 49 (2005): pp. 319-36.

[23] Freedom
House assesses a country’s level of freedom along two different
dimensions–political rights and civil liberties–on a scale of 1 (most free) to
7 (least free). Countries whose averaged scores fall between 1-3 are considered
“free”; those scoring 3-5 are considered “partly free;” those scoring above 5
are considered “not free.”

[24] A list of
organizations used in the analysis is available from the author.

[25] Each attack
was coded as either “religious,” “non-religious,” or “unknown.” An attack was
coded as “religious” if the following conditions were met: (a) it was carried
out by a group or individual that conceives of itself as a predominantly
religious actor; (b) that group frames its mission in religious terms, although
it may have other goals as well; and (c) the attacker, although perhaps
involved in a communitarian conflict that politicizes religious symbols, holds
a discernible religious ideology or motivation that serves to animate its
strategies and goals apart from or in addition to the mere utilization of
religious objects or rhetoric.–See Bruce Hoffman, Inside Terrorism (New York:
Columbia University Press), pp. 81-131.